These past couple weeks have been pretty rough. My dog got sick, I got ripped off by the vet, my dad came home from an overseas trip and immediately proceeded to be a jerk, my boss revealed that I'm not getting the work from home promotion I was hoping for, and then my office made a couple changes that only serve to make my job even harder. And I'm having to work through all of it because they've been scheduling me five days of work with only way day off between them for almost a month now, so I don't even have time to relax and unwind. Even now that all that stuff has passed, I feel like I'm just on a continuous loop of getting pissed off, cooling down, and then immediately getting pissed off again. And it's over little things, too. I can't keep my feelings under control, it's like I'm on a hairtrigger. I mean, it's not like I'm going around beating people up when I get mad, but it's really stressing me out. Any advice on how I can help myself feel better?
I think about it this way. Least you ain't getting kidnapped by IS or something.
Your life sucks, but there is always someone or something out there who has it worse than you.
This cycle of stress, calm, stress, calm, is perfectly normal, and most people go through it on an almost daily basis. the AS probably amplifies everything though, making it difficult to cope with. Stress is when the body is trying to fight its own fight-or-flight complex due to an overload of stimuli. Stress is good, it helps you to get s**t done, but too much stress causes you to prepare yourself to run or fight the non-danger which is in front of you, and in your case, it's more likely to fight. If things get overwhelming, it will often overpower other nervous systems which are holding it down. Essentially the Fight and Flight complex is the most primitive of your nervous systems, and therefore it has the most power over you when situations get threatening or stressful.
My advice is that if you want to get control of your emotions, you need to do something to calm your nerves, set up an excercise routine of sorts. When I was coping with stress i found that going for a bike ride or a jog after work (Bicycle, not motorbike) really helped me burn off all the anger of a sh***y day's work. Heck, I had a particularly crap day today at work, so I just hopped on my bike and went for a 10km ride to burn off the steam.
Threat assessment courses are also beneficial. I took one when I was younger, helped me to assess whenever someone was either joking or being a straight up as*hole. I got in a lot fewer fights as a result. Psychotherapy will help too.
03 Feb 2017, 8:50 am
